Zenji Banba
Zenji Banba (馬場善治, Banba Zenji) is a private detective who runs his own detective office in Hakata and works closely with Shigematsu, Enokida and Saeki. Characteristics Appearance Banba is a tall, lean man. He wears a white sweater and old jeans. He has messy, unkempt hair and brown eyes. His hair is said to be black in the novels but illustrations show him with dark brown hair. His form is hunched over. Due to regular practices and workouts for the grass-lot baseball team he is a part of, he is very well fit and fairly muscular. Personality Banba has a gentle and laid-back personality, usually not caring for his appearance or the cleanliness of his residence, much to Lin's annoyance. He is usually patient and understanding in most scenarios, but when it comes to baseball he can be overbearing, especially to the novice of their team, Xianming Lin. Background History Light Novel Volume 1 Banba meets with Shigematsu in Kego Park. Shigematsu informs him of the recent death of a colleague. He thinks it was not a suicide, despite looking like one. After telling Banba that the detective was investigating into Mayor Harada's connections, Shigematsu asks Banba to figure out the circumstances around the detective's death and gives Banba a photo taken of the mayor left behind by the dead detective. In the photo, the mayor is accompanied by a woman and two men. Suspecting that a woman accompanying the mayor in the photo is a killer, Banba decides to consult with the informant Enokida. He heads to the internet cafe Enokida is currently residing in and asks Enokida to look up information regarding the woman. Enokida finds the woman's identity. It's Reiko Asakura, an assassin who specializes in poison. Since it's not quite fitting with how the detective was killed, Banba asks if there is a killer who quit Murder Inc. that specializes in strangulation, which Enokida finds for him. Before Banba leaves, Enokida gives him a GPS-equipped redback spider model listening device for him to utilize. On his way back Banba runs into another acquaintance - Yamato. Yamato recognizes one of the men in the photo of the mayor and tells Banba that the man was recently killed in his own apartment along with his lover. Yamato also suspects that the photo was taken in the club called Miroir. Banba heads there to ask the staff if they have ever seen the mayor visit their facility. Based off the manager's reactions to the questions, Banba leaves knowing he succeeded in confirming their relations and catching their attention. Banba encounters Shigematsu at a batting cage and relays to him what he found out and did so far. Shigematsu worries that Banba may be in danger. Banba agrees light-heartedly. When he comes back to his office in the evening, Xianming Lin is waiting for him there. Lin informs Banba that he was sent to kill him but is there instead to protect him. It's because of a disagreement with his employer whom he wants to inconvenience. Banba asks Lin to get him mentaiko since Lin forbids him to leave his office. After Lin comes back, they have dinner and watch a baseball match together. The following morning, Banba goes out of the office, leaving Lin, who is asleep, behind and meets with Enokida at the internet cafe to find out Lin's identity. When he comes back, he learns that Lin caught another killer who came for him. He tells Lin to let the killer go and offers to pay him for information instead. When Lin agrees, Banba interrogates him and learns from him that the other man in the photo with the mayor is Zhang. Lin takes the money and leaves. After Lin kills Ivanov, Banba arrives at Zhang's office. He found Lin thanks to the redback spider model device he'd attached to Lin's collar while Lin had been sleeping at his office. Banba attaches the device to Ivanov's collar this time, takes Ivanov's cell phone and leaves with Lin. Lin loses conciousness because of his wounds and wakes up at Banba's office. Shigematsu arrives with the information about the man suspected of murdering Qiaomei Lin, Takuya Itou. Lin asks Banba to locate Qiaomei's killer. Banba asks for five years worth of mentaiko as payment. Next, Enokida comes to Banba's office. He looked into Ivanov's phone but didn't find anything interesting. He also accessed the footage from the surveillance cameras at the hotel where Takuya Itou was staying. The footage reveals that Itou was set up by Reiko and Munakata. Enokida plays a recording from the redback spider model device attached to Ivanov's body by Banba. The recording proves that Qiaomei was bought for Yusuke Harada. Lin formulates a plan to have himself be sold to Yusuke as a woman trafficked by the Kakyuu Group in order to kill him and asks for Banba's and Enokida's help. Banba takes Lin home and then goes to Genzo's ramen food cart. Genzo, who is also a killer agent, lets Banba know that a request to kill Banba and Lin came in from the Kakyuu Group. Since the target Lin is a professional killer, the request is supposed to go to the killer of killers, the Niwaka Samurai. Genzo makes sure that Banba is okay with that. Next Banba goes to Saeki's cosmetic clinic. Jiro is also there to dispose of a body of the boy he killed with Martinez for torturing a cat to death. Banba offers to buy the body, which has its head cut off and its face mutilated. Banba declares he will use the body to play dead with. Then he asks Jiro to avenge Lin's sister rape and death and lets him know that Yusuke is the culprit. Enokida sets up the meeting between the mayor's people and Banba and Lin. Banba shows up pretending to be a Kakyuu Group broker. He gives Lin a redback spider model device and a microphone to call him in case of trouble before Lin hides in a suitcase. Banba goes to the meeting and the suitcase with Lin in it is transferred to a car trunk. Trivia * He comes from Hakata and speaks in the local dialect. * His favorite food is hakata tonkotsu ramen and mentaiko (another Hakata specialty). * He is a huge baseball fan and his favorite team are the local Fukuoka Hawks. He uses their theme Iza Yuke Wakataka Gundan (いざゆけ若鷹軍団) as his ringtone. * He is the second baseman for the Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens baseball team. * He owns a Mini Cooper described as red with a white line in the light novel. ** It is shown as blue in the first anime trailer but is red in the anime itself. * He knows little about technology and owns a few years old cellphone instead of a smartphone. Image gallery Banba2.jpg | |[[Category:Characters]]||}}